Bank of America is considering the sale of part of its 34% stake in the asset management firm BlackRock

The com­pany acquired Bar­clays Global Investors in Decem­ber 2009 under the Black­Rock name, mak­ing it the largest money man­ager in the world.[3] The deal had been approved by Bar­clays share­hold­ers and announced on June 11, 2009.[4] As of June 30, 2010, BlackRock’s assets under man­age­ment total US$4.151 tril­lion across equity, fixed income, cash man­age­ment, alter­na­tive invest­ment, real estate and advi­sory strate­gies. Through Black­Rock Solu­tions® — Black­Rock offers risk man­age­ment, strate­gic advi­sory and enter­prise invest­ment sys­tem ser­vices to a broad base of clients with port­fo­lios total­ing approx­i­mately US$9 tril­lion.[5] Black­Rock is publicly-traded, with Bank of Amer­ica, PNC Finan­cial Ser­vices, and Bar­clays PLC hold­ing 34.1%, 24.6%, and 19.9% respec­tively, with the remain­der owned by insti­tu­tional and indi­vid­ual investors, as well as Black­Rock employees

Larry Fink, BlackRock’s founder and CEO, had joined Black­stone in 1988 as a part­ner, along with Ralph Schlosstein, for­mer White House aide under the Carter admin­is­tra­tion, and Robert Kapito and Sue Wag­ner. Before join­ing Black­stone, Fink was a man­ag­ing direc­tor at First Boston, where he pio­neered the mortgage-backed secu­ri­ties mar­ket in the United States